I started with an 8.5×11 white base. I tend to start all my layouts with a cardstock base to give my album a “cohesive” look. I then added an 8×10.5 piece of patterned paper, in this case the the stripes. I then cut a 2nd pattern (the circles) to be 5×10 and since I used two fairly busy patterns I added a 10.25×5.25 piece of yellow under the circles and attached to the left side of the page about 3/4th of an inch in. I added a 4.5×6.5 white mat to the layout about 1.25 inches in and down. While I don’t normally use such a large mat I think with all the pattern it’ll help the photo shine. I’ll add the title under the photo and maybe a few journaling strips to the left.  I have a black and white photo I have in mind for the layout, but need to get it printed (on of my least favorite tasks)

You can easily switch out the 5×10 patterned paper for a cardstock piece and do a long bit of journaling, add a 2nd small photo to the left corner, or even add some ribbon to the photo mat or use a larger photo. (I love working with 4x6s so that’y why my photo mat is set up for that).

In case you’re like me and like to have all the measurements in one place:

1-8.5×11 cardstock; 1-8×10.5 patterned paper; 1-5×10 patterned paper; 1-5.25×10.25 cardstock; 1-4.5×6.5 photo mat

Thanks for reading and happy crafting!

Some sketches or layouts are easier to work from then others. I have worked from many 12×12 sketches. I tend to keep a notebook nearby when searching for inspiration online. I divide the page into 4th with a pen and then sketch the layout into a mini-version in one of the 4 spaces.  There are times when I’m working from a 12×12 sketch that I try to alter the entire layout and other times that I just take elements.

from pagemaps.com July 2010

From this Becky Fleck sketch I only took some elements. I started with the photo box. I kept the top 3 photos the same size, but I added 2 2.5×2 photos to the bottom (I had quite a few photos I wanted to include in this layout) and then I added a strip of patterned paper to the left and moved the title to the bottom. Here’s my layout. I used cosmo cricket for the patterned papers from the snorkel collection and sticker ribbon. I used American Craft stickers to create the title (and my scanner and I aren’t getting along so the colors are a little washed out)

Then at times I’ll take the entire layout and alter it.

Becky Fleck from backporchmemories.com Feb GDT search

Here I just made everything a bit smaller. I made a 5 inch circle and used a 4×4 size for my main photo. Each of the photos in the strip are 2×2 still.

Thanks for reading & happy crafting!

<3 Ann

Welcome to my blog. this is a sketch and layout I created for a challenge at BackPorchMemories.com for January.

I’m hoping to make my sketches better in the future. Right now I’m just free handing them into a program I have.

The layout I created to go with this sketch:

Journaling reads: I’m always taking pictures of myself in mirrors sometimes with the camera to my face & others not!

Products used:

Cardstock: Bazzill; PP: Basic Grey; Flowers: Prima, Paint: Ranger; Letters: Jillibean; Pen: Martha Stewart; Ribbon: Unkown

Photo: Self portait Disneyland 1/2011

Thanks for reading & happy crafting!

<3 Ann